The Resurrectionist Read online

  Once the business of introductions is done we wander on, Ash and Amy walking ahead. At the lake’s end Arabella and I pause: high overhead, in the space above the lake, a flock of starlings has begun to mass, their tiny bodies streaming in like sand. A common sight, yet nonetheless we gaze up at this small wonder, as they wheel and turn as if directed by a single mind, a shifting cloud which pulls and grows, only to disperse again, all at once into the air.

  Amy has paused meanwhile, with Ash, beside a fiddler. Ash takes a coin from his coat and hands it to Amy, who turns, holding it aloft for us to see before casting it into the musician’s hat.

  ‘You are a good friend to her,’ I say, but Arabella shakes her head.

  ‘Would that I were better.’

  ‘How so?’ I ask. Arabella hesitates. When she speaks again her voice is soft.

  ‘She was no more than a child when we met. She was a seamstress and I an actress already, playing little parts. Yet her heart is twice the size of mine.’ Together we watch Amy grip Ash’s arm tighter, pressing herself against him. I cannot imagine her upon the stage, for unlike Arabella she seems so utterly herself. To become another is to hide oneself, perhaps even to lose oneself, and it is a terrible thing, and the easiest.

  ‘He is kind to her?’ I ask.

  ‘He is a man,’ she says, her tone sharp. But then she continues, her voice softer again.

  ‘You know him, do you not?

  I look at her in surprise. ‘Not well,’ I say.

  She nods. ‘Then you know the sort of man he is.’

  ‘You think he does not mean to marry her?’

  ‘He is a gentleman, and gentlemen do not want girls like Amy for marrying.’

  Although there is no anger in her voice, I am ashamed at this, but for which of us I am not sure.

  ‘Why did you wish to avoid me at the theatre?’ I ask after a time. She lets go my arm and turns on the bank. Two drakes are fighting, their wings throwing clouds of water all about them.

  ‘Arabella?’

  She does not look at me. ‘You must not do this, Gabriel.’

  ‘I do not understand,’ I say.

  Her arms are crossed before her when she turns, and again it is as if she thought I might mean her harm.

  ‘Look at Amy,’ she says, ‘and your Mr Ash. He is a gentleman, and for that reason will never marry her. Of course if the truth be known that is no great matter in itself, for Amy does not much care for Mr Ash. But what of the other Mr Ashes? She will not be young forever, nor so pretty either.’

  ‘And you?’ I ask.

  She fixes her gaze on me, caught between anger and something else. ‘Do not be obtuse, Gabriel,’ she says at last, turning to walk on. ‘It does not suit you.’

  At the gates Amy and Ash are waiting amongst the passing crowd. As we approach I cannot help but see his sourness, the space in him her youth will fill, and never be enough.

  ‘We would take lunch,’ he says, smiling at me as he speaks.

  Knowing that he hopes I will decline I nod and we make our way out into Mayfair, where in a tavern we take a table and are fed. Amy, no doubt sensing something between us, speaks enough for everyone, eating all the while, oysters and bread and beer, her hand moving to cover her mouth each time she laughs. Arabella eats more slowly, joining in Amy’s laughter sometimes as an elder sister might. Ash though is silent, his body hard against Amy’s. Several times I catch him watching me, his dark eyes steady and unwelcoming.

  By the time we are done the afternoon is fading, the sky overhead almost colourless, a sliver of moon visible above the rooftops. Amy is due at the theatre in an hour, and so she departs with Ash in a cab, leaving Arabella and me to make our way back on our own. We walk side by side, untouching, our conversation now we are alone together careful, guarded, although with a closeness that was not there before.

  ‘I do not think I like this Ash,’ I say.

  Arabella looks at me. ‘No?’ she asks, then shakes her head and looks away once more. ‘He is not the worst of his kind.’

  ‘That is not what I mean,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I know.’ Taking my arms she draws me closer, lets her small weight lean into me.

  I KNOW AT ONCE something is wrong, for there is murder in the eyes of Mr Tyne. Behind him Oates, the coachman, shifts uneasily, his fat face caught somewhere between fear and self-righteousness. The two of them have been at St Bart’s to collect a corpse from old Crowley who teaches there.

  ‘Where is the body?’ Mr Poll asks, and Mr Tyne shoots a look at Oates whose mouth is opening and closing like a fish.

  ‘Stolen,’ replies Mr Tyne.

  The room falls still.

  ‘Before or after you paid for it?’ asks Mr Poll.

  ‘After,’ Mr Tyne replies.

  Mr Poll turns towards him.

  ‘How?’ he begins, then shakes his head. ‘No, do not tell me, let me guess. You left this prattling fool there to watch for you.’

  Oates hangs his head in shame, but not before Mr Poll looks at him in a manner that makes it clear he has not heard the last of this.

  Mr Tyne nods slowly and, though he holds himself carefully, the anger that eats at him to be so upbraided is plainly visible. I try to look away, but he catches me, and in that moment I see his hatred plain as day.

  ‘You thought he would not take every chance to torment us?’ asks Mr Poll angrily, and for an instant I think Mr Tyne will speak back, so violent is his rage. Then Mr Poll shakes his head, a look of disgust on his face.

  ‘Get out,’ he says. ‘I would not have to look upon you.’

  Mr Tyne clatters away down the stairs and out into the street. No doubt he means to find Caley and have it out with him. In the hall Oates trembles, his fat face flushed with shame and indignation. Having no words of comfort I might offer I leave him there.

  Though the afternoon is already half gone the house is quiet, Robert away and Charles not yet arrived. I am thankful for the quiet; these last weeks Mr Poll’s temper has grown worse with each passing day, and I have too often been on the receiving end of it. That we were forced to buy the body from St Bart’s is only the latest indignity Lucan has brought upon us. Again and again over the last weeks bodies sought by Caley and Walker on our behalf have vanished before they could retrieve them, their graves already pillaged or the coffins filled with stones, their contents stolen before they were even committed to the earth.

  This would be bad enough, but a half a dozen times these bodies have reappeared almost at once upon the table of some other surgeon, delivered there by Lucan’s hand. Twice we have bought ones particularly needed back, once from van Hooch, once from Guy’s, paying a premium for the privilege. The body stolen from Mr Tyne and Oates was another thus, a man called Polkinghorne dead of a swelling of the brain, on whose examination Mr Poll was placing great stock, and yet this time Lucan has contrived to make us pay a premium and then spirited it away once more, so both the subject and the money are lost to us, fifteen guineas gone on a body we no longer have.

  I close the door of the library behind me, arranging my books upon the table. Outside the day is still, cloud lying flat and low and featureless, diffusing the light, soft grey without register or source. On the table lies the arm of a woman Caley brought two nights ago, its skin pinned back so I may draw it, and taking up my pen I begin. A few minutes pass, then on the sill a sparrow alights, its body stilled for an instant or two. In my hand my pen stops, poised above the paper. Careful lest it see my movement and flit away once more, I turn the page of my book, letting my hand run over it, tracing out the shape of its head, its back’s fat line, drawing as quickly as I can, my eyes shifting between page and subject, trying to fix it in my mind, to catch the essence of it. It can only be a matter of seconds, but it feels more like an hour or a day, my heart beating fast, my body lost to this moment. And then I lift my eyes again to find it has turned and is looking in. In my hand the pen falls still, the black eyes meeting mine, full of being
, aware in some unknowable way. The moment stretches on, my heart seeming to slow, and then as suddenly as it came it turns its head and is gone, its body thrown in a blur of wings into the air.

  In the space of its leaving I sit, staring outwards, into the light, and so I do not hear him enter. It is only when he stops behind me that I realise I am no longer alone and turn, one hand falling across the page, the other raised towards my face as if I might wipe away the light.

  ‘That does not look like the task that you were set,’ he says, and though his tone is stern the anger of before seems to have gone. Something awkward too, as if he sought to be friendly, and the manner of it came not easily.

  ‘No, sir,’ I say, standing clumsily.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘sit.’ He places a hand upon the drawing. Knowing I must, I lift my arm, relinquish it.

  ‘It is a sparrow,’ I say weakly, and he darts a look across the page’s top at me.

  ‘You think me blind?’ he asks.

  He is not an easy man, and I am afraid of him. Reaching out again he shifts the papers that lie upon the desk. This reveals not notes and drawings of my work, but sketches I have made, day by day: a profile of Charles, a washerwoman, two cats, Blackfriars Bridge. One by one he examines them, studying carefully, until eventually the last is reached.

  ‘You have some skill with a pen,’ he says, as if surprised. I nod uncertainly: it is his belief that drawing is a vital part of our education, for only through the reproduction of a thing will its image be truly fixed within the mind, and so at his direction we are made to draw, but I know, as he must know, that it is the only part of my training I have any aptitude for.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. All at once he turns away, leafing through the pages of a book that lies upon the bench nearby.

  ‘Charles tells me you have seen a little of the city in his company.’

  I shift, uneasy. These last weeks have seen a change in the relations between him and Charles, as Mr Poll’s temper has grown more troublesome Charles has become more solicitous towards the older man, but with a solicitousness that seems designed to disguise a growing distance between the two of them. Perhaps an outsider would not see it, and indeed it is not always there: when they are engaged in the business of dissection and surgery, they are as they ever were, two bodies possessed of one mind, lost to the work. But it is there nonetheless.

  ‘A little,’ I say.

  ‘And how do you find him?’

  I do not answer. Mr Poll watches me, then nods slowly.

  ‘You are loyal, I see. And he is a man who inspires loyalty, is he not?’

  ‘He is,’ I say.

  ‘Would you call him a friend?’

  ‘I hope he would see me as such.’

  Mr Poll considers, then, quite suddenly, he thrusts a drawing into my grasp.

  ‘What gives strength to the muscle?’ he asks, prodding the woman’s arm.

  ‘Exercise,’ I say cautiously.

  ‘Then do not let this facility of yours become an end in itself. To do what is easy does not exercise the moral faculties of the brain. There is a weakness inherent in those who are easy with themselves, a weakness you would do well to avoid.’

  THE END WHEN IT COMES is swift. On the doorstep a man I do not know. One eye staring pale and blind, the colour in it seemingly scoured away, its emptiness making me recoil. At first I take him for a sexton, or an undertaker perhaps, for he wears a dark suit and hat, and there is something about his long face and manner, his air of false sympathy which somehow fits the part. But his suit is too ragged, and his smile at the way his eye startles me betrays a different sort of nature.

  ‘Here, boy,’ he says, ‘this is for your master.’

  I take the letter he holds outstretched.

  ‘Who is it from?’ – but as I ask, the door behind me opens. Mr Tyne. His eyes move from one of us to the other, and then his expression changes.

  ‘You?’ he spits. But our visitor only smiles, as if Mr Tyne’s temper pleases him. Seeing the letter in my hand Mr Tyne snatches it.

  ‘This is yours?’ he demands. The other man simply touches his hat and bows exaggeratedly –

  ‘Give your master my blessings.’

  Left alone with me Mr Tyne lifts the letter to my face.

  ‘Did you bring him here?’ he demands.

  Shaking my head I tell him I have never seen him before today. With a sudden motion he casts the letter at my chest.

  ‘Your master is inside, boy. Do as you were bid.’

  He follows me up to Mr Poll’s study. Charles is there, and Robert too, and as we enter the three of them turn.

  ‘Yes?’ asks Mr Poll, and I step forward, placing the letter in his hand. Seeing the script on its front, a flicker passes across his face, but otherwise his expression is impassive as he opens and reads it.

  ‘Who brought this?’ he asks then, looking up at me. Mr Tyne takes a step forward.

  ‘Craven,’ he says, and at this the room grows quiet. Even I know it as the name of Lucan’s man, the most trusted of his gang.

  ‘What does it say?’ Charles asks, rising from the chair. Mr Poll makes no move to put the letter in his hand; indeed, he does not even look at Charles.

  ‘It is from Lucan,’ he says. ‘Caley and Walker are taken by the law.’

  Beside me Mr Tyne makes a hissing sound, but it is Charles who speaks.

  ‘Would he have us beg?’

  ‘That is precisely what he means to have,’ says Mr Poll, his voice dismissing Charles’s words as if they were those of a foolish child. Charles’s face darkens, but if Mr Poll sees it he gives no sign. Instead he rounds on Mr Tyne, holding the letter out at him.

  ‘And you, man. How is it I must learn of it thus? Is it true?’ – though it is plain from the fury of Mr Tyne’s expression that he knew no more than any of us. ‘Well? Answer me!’

  ‘I do not know.’

  Mr Poll stares at him for a long moment.

  ‘Go then, find out.’ And then he turns away, dismissing us. Only Charles remains, looking at his back, his eyes cold.

  It is dark before Mr Tyne returns, the house silent and still. We follow him to Mr Poll’s study, where he makes his report: Caley and Walker are indeed taken, and at this very moment sit in the cells of Bow Street where they were brought after a struggle in the yard of St Bartholomew’s.

  Outside in the street the night is mild, the cries of children and the scent of smoke rising through the windows, but in the house it is cold.

  ‘Very well, then,’ says Mr Poll. ‘It is done.’

  ONCE MR POLL HAS GONE I follow Charles and the others to a place in the Haymarket. Inside the air is hot, and close, the rooms crowded with men and women all talking and drinking. Chifley would play at cards, and almost immediately takes himself and Caswell away to find a table, leaving me alone with Charles. Charles moves restlessly, looking through the rooms as if for something which remains ever out of reach.

  ‘What will happen to Caley and Walker?’ I ask as we go, and he gazes at me though I speak of something from long ago, another time, another place.

  ‘They will be tried, and no doubt convicted.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Theft, trespass, public affray. Some charge will be found.’

  ‘And us?’

  He shrugs. ‘We will be Lucan’s again.’

  Surprised by the carelessness of his tone I begin to object

  – but he reminds me that these are not subjects for company such as this. On the room’s other side Chifley and Caswell have found a game and are seating themselves. Chifley motions us to join them, but Charles declines, excusing himself and leaving me there.

  And so left alone I wander back through the house, looking at the faces, the dresses and the jewels and the beauty of the women whose bodies fill its rooms. Down the stairs in the hall, there are palms in massive pots, and by the door Negroes in uniforms, and in the ballroom the band plays.

  And then quite suddenly I see
her, half-turned away. She wears a dress of the deepest blue, her hair piled high upon her head. I begin to walk towards her, delighted to find her here, but then I realise she is not alone, that she is on the arm of a man I do not recognise.

  He is older than her, moustachioed, his frame broad, and powerful. I stop, a kind of space opening within me, and then she turns. That she sees me, I know – for our eyes meet and for a long instant she freezes, gazing back, her eyes dark with the look of warning she gave me that night, months ago, in Kitty’s room. Then she looks away, showing no sign of recognition.

  ‘You know her then?’ Chifley’s voice.

  ‘Who is that man with her?’

  ‘Her lover, Sparrow, a man of property.’

  I will not flinch.

  ‘What? You thought she might love you alone?’ Chifley asks.

  I step away, not prepared to let him see how his words have cut me, the room moving as if I am drunk, my legs weak, and his face lit with his crooked smile.

  LATE, AND IN THE STREET rain has begun to fall, a mist which moves in clouds through the glow of the lamps. Alone and drunk, in front of the house I draw out my key, push the door as quietly as I can. Inside it is dark, the events of the day lingering in the stillness. Tomorrow Lucan will come, we know. He will offer terms we have no choice but to accept along with the knowledge of our defeat at his hands.

  Beneath my feet the boards creak, the sound loud in the space of the hall, and then I feel it – a presence in the air.

  ‘Robert?’ I ask, swaying slightly. ‘Mrs Gunn?’

  Something, barely more than a rustle.

  ‘Hello?’ I call, pressing open the door which leads to the dissection room at the house’s rear. A suggestion of light falls from the glass roof. Otherwise darkness. Taking a step inwards I peer into the silent space. In my chest my breath is stopped, my blood moving in the silence. Then behind me I hear the hastening creak of the door as it shuts, the rising light of a lamp filling the room, and turning I see Mr Tyne.